


Après Nous, Le Déluge.

by Feather (lalaietha)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten drabbles on the way to Florence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Après Nous, Le Déluge.

1\. The swagger's missing from her walk, her hair's tangled, but she still manages to exude perfection and control even in the moment her brain catches up with what her eyes are seeing. The only thing that betrays any of the emotion she doesn't want to show is the way her jaw locks just for a second. 

Bruce is both impressed and a little touched. 

"You asshole," she says. The swagger comes back as she crosses the last of the distance to sit beside him, her in her work-suit and him in his jeans. 

"I lied about the autopilot," he says. 

 

2\. He's been in forgotten prisons and the palaces of the rich, but somehow Selina's not surprised that Bruce Wayne's never been in a Super 8 before. She thinks there might just be a little horror behind his eyes as he looks around, but he's good enough not to show it elsewhere. 

Between them, they have enough to get them to Europe and to get them some clothes. If they're careful. Selina sits down on the bed, leans back on her hands and crosses one leg. "Exactly what kind of partnership is this, Bruce?" she asks. 

"What kind do you want?"

 

3\. "You know," she says, as she runs uneven fingernails through his hair, "if I hadn't sold you to Bane we'd probably all be dead by now." 

She says it on purpose, Bruce is sure, like someone testing a scab. It'd be harder to take if he couldn't hear her heart through bones, blood, muscle and skin; he doesn't think the patter has anything to do with exertion. 

"Are you claiming prescience now?" he asks, a careful test back; she laughs. 

"No," she says. "Just appreciating the irony." She breathes carefully. "Can you?" 

Bruce considers the question. "I think so, yeah." 

 

4\. Selina gets up while Bruce sleeps and pulls on her clothes. She takes the flash-drive and a room-key and enough cash to get a coffee from the machine, and makes her way to the hotel-office. 

It's ridiculously easy to break in; after what she's done lately there's no challenge. The chair doesn't even creak under her when she sits down. 

She's already considered the possibility that Bruce lied just like Dagget lied, and for the same reason. When the program loads and she hits _enter_ , she reflects that she'll feel like she's holding her breath until she knows for sure.

 

5\. Bruce drops the pretense at sleep when she slides back between cheap hotel sheets. As she settles with her back lightly touching his arm, he rests his hand on her shoulder and says, "I didn't lie about the program. It'll work." 

There's a silent moment, even her breath suspended, before Selina's voice comes back with all of her thief's detachment. "We'll see." 

She's given him every reason not to trust her; he supposes that's a better reason for her not to trust him than anything he could have done. "Scout's honour," he says. 

"You weren't a scout," is her reply.

 

6\. The obituary for Bruce Wayne is hazy on cause of death. Selina reads with some amusement, then looks up when Bruce puts her cheap diner coffee on the table. She laughs when he sips his and makes a face. 

"So," she asks, "who did you leave all your nothing to?" 

"Alfred, mostly," he replies. "Odds and ends to others. The house is going to be a home for at-risk and orphan boys." 

"How noble," she says, and feigns a pout. "Nothing for me?" 

The pearls were in his pocket, and she smiles when he dangles them in front of her. 

 

7\. New lives need new papers; fortunately, Bruce knows some guys who know some guys. One of the guys is named Danny, and he gives them forms to fill out. 

It's harder to choose who you want to be than Bruce had ever thought, not that he'd thought about it much. _Bruce Wayne_ was someone hard to stop being, and even now he's not sure he knows how to do it. He stares at the paper. 

Selina's pen never stops moving, not until she's done. Bruce glances over and sees _Selina Fellis_ in her handwriting; he takes his cue from her. 

 

8\. Selina gets the forger to look her up in every database known to man. Or woman, for that matter. And query after query after query for _Selina Kyle_ either gets nothing or pulls up women with her name, other women, strange women - women who assuredly, definitely aren't her. 

The feeling, hollow and strange, drives her outside to the back porch of this middle-class house hiding the criminal inside, whose wife smiled and made her tea. That's where Bruce finds her. 

"Clean slate," he says. He's annoyingly perceptive sometimes. 

She sips her tea and doesn't answer; he just sits down. 

 

9\. The flight to Italy makes Bruce's everything ache, and Selina buys him a cane as soon as they touch the ground. At least, he assumes - chooses to assume - that buying is involved, or at least not stealing from someone who can't afford to lose it. 

When she hands him some pills he starts to push them away and she rolls her eyes. "Relax," she says. "I'll protect us from the big bad muggers while you're under the stultifying influence of ibuprofen." 

After a moment's struggle with himself, Bruce takes the pills. Selina's fond smile is only partly mocking.

 

10\. Cheap Italian hotels are as unfamiliar to Selina as to Bruce. This one has feather pillows, scratchy sheets and awful mattresses; it's strangely unsettling that she doesn't know whether or not this is normal. 

"What now?" she asks over after-dinner coffee. Bruce shrugs. He looks almost young, if you ignore the cane, and lost, and not unhappy about it. 

"I have to be in Florence next summer," he says. "I owe something to a friend. Otherwise - " he shrugs again. "We need money. And you shouldn't steal it." 

Selina thinks that she laughs more around him than ever before.


End file.
